China sets tougher completely new targets to improve smog

China will set more stringent targets for improving the nation’s air quality under a completely new three-year plan, environment minister Li Ganjie said at a briefing on Saturday, as the earth’s second largest economy aims to clear its notoriously toxic air.

The completely new target for concentrations of little, breathable particles known as PM2.5 will be lower than those set inside the country’s current several-year plan in which ends in 2020, he said.

In January, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said the item was drawing up plans for tougher curbs on smog during the next three years to 2020 after a several-year crackdown on pollution helped the item attain air quality targets in December.

Li declined to give further details of the completely new goals as they are still being worked out.

By the end of 2017, the country had already cut PM2.5 concentrations by around 15.8 percent, not far via the target of reducing them by 18 percent by 2020.

“So we will set a lower target for the completely new three-year plan,” he said.